The Wassaic Project, the third annual art festival that fills a meadow with campers, turns a barn into a movie theater, and stuffs and a seven story silo with art, is happening this weekend. We went last year, and had about as much fun as you can have at a camping/art festival this side of Black Rock City, Nevada.

This year's Wassaic Project features over 20 bands, 20 films, and 100 artists. It's cheap to camp for the weekend, and free to attend events and look at art for the day. While the festival's proximity to the Metro North train station is convenient, keep this in mind if you camp: around 5:00 AM each morning, you'll feel like you're in Inception as the hourly trains start barreling through your dreams, shattering the peace and quiet you've schlepped out into the country to enjoy.

Still, it's a great pressure valve release for those needing to get the hell out of Dodge. (Plus, last year, the art rocked.)

Expect the city to be a little less gay this weekend. Thousands of gay and lesbian New Yorkers will be heading out of town to attend the National Equality March
in Washington, D.C.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and presumptive incoming Queens City Councilman Danny Drom have organized bus trips which will be leaving from all over the city. Groups as varied as Broadway Impact, Marriage Equality New York, schools and churches have also chartered buses to attend the largest ever gay March on Washington. (Tickets are now scarce, but as our colleagues over in events point out, you can attend this weekend's Polyamorous Cuddle Party in Central Park and get a free ride to the march after.)

The march will end on the Capitol Mall, with Quinn joining Cleve Jones, Lt. Dan Choi, Judy Shepard and others to speak. Despite the fact that the march route will go right past his house, President Obama will not be addressing the assembly, many of whom have criticized the newest Nobel Peace Prize Winner for not making peace with them. However, he is concerned enough about not making good on his campaign promises to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense Of Marriage Act that he will address the Human Rights Campaign's annual dinner the night before.

We like to look in on members of our New York political comedy troupe from whom we haven't been heard in a while. You may have wondered, for example, what was up with Tom Golisano, the eccentric billionaire and erstwhile independent gubernatorialcandidate who was giving awaymillions last year to dozens of candidates to influence -- or reform, depending on your POV -- state elections, via his one-man PAC, Responsible New York, which recently called on state residents to fight unfair property taxes.

Well, Golisano seems to be giving up that battle: he announced in a speech today that he's getting the hell out of New York, saying he can't stick the high taxes anymore. "We're driving people away from their families and their friends" with taxes, he says. "These are people who are building jobs and promoting businesses and what the state is doing is driving them out."

What's weird about this -- aside from the spectacle of a former candidate for governor abandoning the state he wanted to run -- is that up till last month at least, Golisano was still machinating in state politics: the leader of the state Independence Party, which has backed Bloomberg for mayor, told Erie County pols a few weeks back that Golisano would be calling the shots on endorsements.

We believe Golisano will continue to influence New York politics from whatever underwater supervillain lair he moves to. He says he's hanging onto his team, the Buffalo Sabres, and Paychex, the company that made him rich.

It was 8 p.m. by the time I got the family truckster out on the road last Friday. The Merritt's first few miles of gentle curves lulled us into a sense of security. Then, all of sudden, around a bend, there's this sea of brake-lights, and this disconcerting feeling of coming to a complete stop on a highway. At moments like those, you hope for two things: One, that your bladder holds up, and two, that you don't see a mushroom cloud or a tornado or a horde of killer rats in the rear-view mirror. Come what disasters may, escape was not an optionfor us or the 7,000 cars behind us on the way out of the metropolis.

Kurt Russell could escape from New York, but could you? A new survey by the American Highway Users Association thinks not. New York places 35th out of 37 major cities on ease of evacuation. New York gets an F, as do Philly and Boston and Houston, but only Chicago and LA are considered more of a death-trap that the five boroughs. Kansas City gets an A. And, hey, super for them!